


Definition

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-20
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-04 00:26:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/387613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without ever meaning to, Rumpelstiltskin builds his love a bower.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definition

**Author's Note:**

> Prompted by Oldandnewfirm on Tumblr - "I will build my love a bower".
> 
> There are several definitions of bower. Rumpelstiltskin is a skilled bower-maker.

**1: an attractive dwelling or retreat**

 

The Dark Castle was not what Belle expected.

The carriage-ride from her father's Kingdom had been exhausting to say the least, but when the carriage slowed, she looked guardedly at the man - the creature - sitting opposite her. He had barely spoken throughout the journey, hidden in the shadows of the carriage, long, spidery fingers folded together on his crossed legs.

They had travelled all night and all day again, perhaps longer, seldom stopping. She had tried not to sleep, but at times, she found herself jolting awake. The man who was now her owner barely moved, and sometimes, it felt she was sitting in a carriage with a statue.

"Are we there?"

He giggled, hopping to his feet. "Indeed we are, dearie," he said, opening the door of the carriage with a snap of his fingers. His magic seemed to come to him so naturally, barely given a thought. A set of steps unfolded and he skipped out into the evening light.

Belle rose stiffly, gathering her skirt in her hand and stepping down from the carriage. She stopped short at the sight of the place that was now to be her prison. It was nothing like she expected, all white stone and elegant towers. The grounds spread around them as far as she could see, hemmed in by mountains tipped with the first snows of the coming winter. It looked like something that should belong to a gracious Queen and full of happy children and songs.

"Come along, come along," Rumpelstiltskin sing-songed, standing impatiently by the grand doors. He looked out of place there, a dark little knot of an imp in a world of white marble and gilt ornamentation. "Time is wasting, dearie."

She picked her way up the staircase, which was framed by ornate bannisters. "This is your home?"

He opened the grand doors with a flourish. "Did you expect a dark tower?" he said, his lip curling. "Something with spikes and flaming torches, no doubt?"

"Well... yes," Belle admitted.

His eyes gleamed, and he whirled about, leading her into the grand palace. He walked briskly, and Belle's travel-stiffened legs ached beneath her as she hurried after him. The halls were as beautiful as the outside of the castle, though she could see how dusty the tapestries were, and cobwebs clinging in corners.

It was like a labyrinth of marble, with towering windows, high and arched ceilings. Rich curtains draped down around the windows, and there were candlesticks and vases in niches in the walls, greyed gently with quiet neglect.

He walked on and on, finally flinging open a door into a vast and beautiful room, which unlike the rest of the castle, seemed spotless. Strange objects stood, gleaming, on pedastals, and there was a spinning wheel - his gold-making wheel, no doubt - standing in one corner. She stared around wonderingly at the colourful banners hung from the walls.

He was still walking, briskly, purposefully.

"Where are you taking me?"

He glanced back at her, smiling in his unpleasant way. "Let's call it your room," he said.

Belle looked at the halls of white stone and wondered what kind of room would await her.

When he whirled on her, there was a malevolent glimmer in his eye, and he threw open a door, revealing a bare-walled cell lined with straw.

"My room?" she exclaimed, horrified.

He grinned nastily at her. "Well, it sounds a lot better than dungeon," he said, then pushed her in and slammed the door.

Belle exclaimed in indignation, pounding at the door. "You can't just leave me here!" she shouted through the wood. "Hello!"

There was silence from the other side and she sat down in the straw with a huff. A whole castle of gorgeous rooms and high windows and she was locked in a grim little dungeon with barely a crack in the wall for daylight. She paused, then smiled sheepishly at her own foolishness.

It was what she had expected, really, until she had seen the castle.

He wanted to shock her, she knew. As much as the castle had surprised her, he had been bitterly amused by her expectations of him. He looked like a demon, so she had expected him to live like one, not like a very wealthy King in a very fine castle.

She plumped her skirts around her and hugged her knees.

Well, if he wanted to shock and horrify her deliberately, she would not respond to it.

Dungeon or not, she was still going to stand by her deal.

 

 

**2: a lady's private apartment in a medieval hall or castle**

 

Belle was a strange creature.

When Rumpelstiltskin released her from her cell, he had expected trembling pleas and wide-eyed dread. Instead, she obediently followed him through the castle, and when ordered, set to work making a pot of tea. He returned to the great hall, puzzled. It would not do, to have her stoically accepting her fate. It was too much like courage for his tastes.

It was that little worm of wickedness that made him quip about skinning children, and for a moment, she looked petrified. He couldn't help but giggle. His reputation, it seemed, had truly gone before him.

It came as something of a surprise when she laughed. Shakily, it was true, but it was still a laugh.

It brought him up short, and that was something that rarely happened.

No one ever laughed in the halls but him, and he did not expect it of a woman who had sold herself to him to save her village. Especially not a noble, who were the most arrogant cowards of all. They often hid from the battles behind their high walls, and it was the poor below who suffered.

It was not the first time she would surprise him, nor the last.

By the end of her first week, she stopped knocking before entering the great hall. By her third week in his home, she learned to make his tea exactly as he liked it, a feat in itself, as he was very particular about the combination of leaves. By her fourth week, she huffed and chastised him, as if she were the lady of the house, and insisted on having him sit up properly at the dinner table, and eat like a gentleman.

Rumpelstiltskin was utterly perplexed. Fascinated, but still bewildered.

When he traded her life for her village, he had assumed she would buckle and break, as he would have in the same situation, but instead, she was turning out more determined than he had ever imagined. For a woman he still housed in a dungeon, she was remarkably capable of looking neat, clean, and efficient. Somehow, she had even managed to make herself some new clothing, which caught him off-guard the first time he saw her in blue instead of gold.

"Dearie," he said slowly, "I can't help notice that you have mutilated the bedding."

She smiled at him, and her eyes danced. "Well, I thought you would prefer to have me dressed in something modest, rather than flouncing around in my shift, while my dress dries," she said.

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed hard at that thought. She would do it too. The woman was absolutely fearless, even in the face of his fits of temper and melancholy. With no father or fiancee to subdue her, she was all too willing to do anything she pleased. "You might have asked."

"If I could make a dress?"

"To be provided with clothing," he snapped. "If you lack, you should inform me."

She looked at him in surprise, her brow creased in confusion. "Really?"

He could have bitten his tongue. Of course she would not think of such a thing, when he still housed her in a cell. He had not even paused to think that she did not bring anything with her. He had all but dragged her from her father's halls without so much as a by-your-leave. Hardly time to pack.

He turned abruptly and walked away. There were matters that needed to be attended to.

She was scrubbing the floor in one of the upstairs corridors the next day when he returned to her. She was humming to herself as she worked, and didn't notice him until she practically scrubbed across the toes of his boots.

"Oh!" She scrambled up. "Sorry. I didn't see you there."

"I noticed," he observed wryly. "Come with me, dearie. There's something you should see."

She fell into step beside him, rather than behind him. He slanted a sidelong look at her, wondering if she would have been so bold, had she ended up married to the oversized lump who claimed to be her fiancé. He suspected not. Large men tended to subdue their small women.

"What is it?" she asked, as they ascended one of the staircases. "Did I miss one of the windows up here? I was sure I'd cleaned them all."

His lips twitched ruefully. "In truth, dearie, I wouldn't have noticed. This isn't a part of the castle I frequent."

"You should," she informed him. "It has the most beautiful views of the valleys."

He slanted a glance at her. "I'm sure it does," he said, then pushed the doors open into one of the long-neglected chambers. The room was spotless, as she had left it, but now, there were drapes and a bed. Several books were set on an oak desk and there were cushions lining the deep window-seat which overlooked the valley she professed to admire so much. There was even a trousseau at the end of the bed.

Belle looked around, startled. "You're preparing for visitors?"

"No, dearie," he said with a snort. "Your room below is hardly suitable for a permanent chamber. If you are to be here forever, you might as well have some measure of comfort."

She stared at him in surprise. "This is for me?"

He folded his hands behind his back, wondering if there was something wrong. "Unless you prefer to be below?"

"No!" she said at once, shaking her head. She touched his arm, and he looked at her, startled. "Thank you. This is wonderful."

He stepped back awkwardly and bowed stiffly at the waist. "It's no matter, dearie," he said, then added, "But your duties will remain the same, dungeon or not."

"Of course." She smiled at him, and to his surprise, his lips twitched in response.

 

 

**3: a shelter (as in a garden) made with tree boughs or vines twined together**

 

The gardens of the Dark Castle were vast and mostly untamed.

Belle loved walking in them, especially in the autumn, when all the leaves were turning and golden. There were even some fruit trees which she fought her way to, despite the knee-high brambles and thorns that seemed to cluster everywhere.

Rumpelstiltskin found her there one afternoon, perched halfway up a gnarled old pear tree. Her skirt was pulled up to serve as a basket, leaving her petticoat flapping around her calves.

"What are you doing?" he asked, standing on the far side of the briars. He often wore a look of mild confusion around her, no matter what she happened to be doing. It was as if he had an impression of what a woman of her station should be like, and couldn't quite understand why she wasn't behaving as she should.

"I'm fishing," she replied, biting down on a smile.

"Fishing?" he echoed.

She laughed. "of course not," she said, choosing one of the pears from her skirt and tossing it to him. He plucked it from the air, looking at it suspiciously. "They're just ripening," she said. "Sweet and not too soft."

He turned the pear over between his fingers. "I see," he said, looking at her. "Might I ask how you got up there?"

She smiled at him. "You don't think I could climb a tree?" she said, eyes dancing. "After I managed to clean the top-most corners of your library, you still think I'm incapable?"

He waved vaguely to the mess of brambles between them. "Unless you can fly, this should have been something of an impediment."

She snorted in amusement, knotting her skirt up and climbing down from the tree. "You really have no imagination," she said.

She reached down by the trunk of the tree and recovered the long roll of heavy canvas that had once covered the work surface in the kitchen. She wrapped it around herself like a thick skirt, and strode through the bushes as if wading through water. Branches snagged and tangled, but she pushed onwards to the other side.

"There!" she said, untangling the canvas and shaking it out to spread it on the ground. She sat down and started sorting through the fruit she had gathered. "I think we'll have pear crumble tonight."

Rumpelstiltskin was staring at her, as if she had grown a second head. "Why not just ask for the brambles to be removed?" he asked.

She looked up at him with amusement. "And waste a good supply of blackberries?" she asked. "I have plans to try and make jam and preserves as soon as they're ripe. There are enough for almost all the recipes in the books and I can't do that if you come marching out here and blasting my fruit bushes to pieces."

He raised his eyebrows. "Your fruit bushes?"

She nodded firmly. "From the looks of it, you haven't touched this garden in decades," she declared. "Since I'm obviously the only one who cares about it, I think that means I can claim ownership."

He looked at the pear in his hand, then back at her.

She patted the canvas beside her. "Don't you like pears?"

He sat down cautiously, as if wary of what she might do. "I like them well enough," he said. He turned the pear over again. "You enjoy the garden?"

She smiled at him. "I do," she said. "You saw my village. We didn't have much in the way of fruit trees. Anything that wasn't fish-related or from the sea had to be traded for, and sometimes, it would be months between any decent supplies."

He seldom asked about her home, and she knew he wouldn’t ask again now. He was studying the fruit in his hand, as if he had never seen such a thing before. 

“Do you have a knife with you?” she asked, gently intruding on his thoughts.

He looked up, startled. “What?”

“A knife,” Belle said. “You can peel it and try it. It won’t bite.” She looked suspiciously at the tree, then back at him. “Will it?”

His lips turned up in the small, puzzled smile he frequently bestowed on her. It was less rare now, and she found it softened the harshness of his features. “I’m not aware of any of the trees producing man-eating fruit,” he said, drawing a small blade from his belt.

“Hmm.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and was amused when he licked his hand at her, as if dismissing such an idea. She crawled a little closer on the canvas, settling herself beside him, watching as he peeled the pear in one long, coiling strip. “How do you do that?”

“Peel fruit?”

She tugged the peel up. “All in one,” she said. “I can never manage.”

His lips twitched. “Alchemy, dearie,” he said. “And many years of practise.”

She leaned against his arm, and felt him jolt in surprise. “Cut me a slice?” she asked. 

“Wh-what?”

She nodded to the pear with a smile. “Cut me a slice,” she said. “I’d like to see if they’re as sweet as they smell.”

He stared at her for a moment, then cut a paper-thin slice, which he proffered to her cautiously. She picked it up carefully between finger and thumb, sniffed at it, then popped it into her mouth.

“Mm!”

“Good?” he said, looking at her with continued bewilderment. 

“Try some,” she insisted. “That is wonderful!”

He did so, as if she had asked him to try poison, then looked surprised at the sweetness of the fruit, which had been growing in his garden for years. 

“Well?” she said, tucking her arm around his.

His eyes returned to her face, and she was pleased when he didn’t draw his arm away. “I suppose it’s tolerable,” he said.

She laughed, nudging him with her shoulder. “I told you.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” he said, cutting her another slice. “You should have dominion in the gardens.”

Belle blinked at him, then broke into a smile. “Really?”

His smile was still tentative, but a little broader than usual. “Really,” he said.

Belle laid her head on his shoulder happily. “Thank you.”

He was still and silent for a moment, then he whispered, “You’re welcome, dearie.”


End file.
